Harlequin Icthyosis

She was born covered in a cracked shell of white scales, eyes red and bloody. Every day she had to scrub away the hard skin that grew and grew until her joints creaked and her sight faded. But underneath it all, she knew she had the heart of a dragon, protected by her polished scales of opal.

Created in PaintTool Sai over a few hours on a rainy afternoon. Part of an ongoing series of portraits designed to normalise and celebrate deformity and variation by displaying it in a light typically reserved for aesthetically 'perfect' figures.